Anything can be made to seem superficially 'cheap' if corruption is used to enforce subsidies on populations.

Fossil fuels are only 'cheaper' because governments have become irredeemably corrupted by fossil fuel interests, so none have to face public liabilities for the damage caused by their products. The apparent 'cheapness' is a consequence only of fraudulent accounting. This is a specific case of the more general 'Pollution Paradox', viz. "The more polluting a company is, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it is not regulated out of existence" (George Monbiot).

No, fossil fuels really are cheaper than competing energy sources. No corruption needed!

You think they are cheaper when the actual physical consequences of CO2 emissions are priced in? No-one else does, including the fossil fuel companies. They haven't invested the vast sums they have into lobbying and science-interference out of charitable inclinations towards lobbyists, amateurish scientists and think-tank careerists.

> More expensive energy -> less energy use -> lower standard of living.

This makes 2 assumptions which I find to be false.

1) Any drop in the standard of living is bad. e.g. I don't need to be freezing in a store in the middle of summer.

2) Less energy use necessitates a drop in the standard of living. e.g. using energy more efficiently via lights and insulation.

1) I agree, but most of the population does not agree and will vote accordingly. This isn't about what's rational - taking a hit to our standard of living to stave off catastrophe is definitely rational. This is about what the masses will support and vote for.

2) Efficiency gains can help, but shaving off some excess here and there will not prevent a climate catastrophe. It will take drastically less fossil fuel use. I don't see that happening unless technology makes renewables cheaper than fossils. It's hard, but it's possible.

>No, we stick with fossil fuels because they are cheaper (at the scale we need). More expensive energy -> less energy use -> lower standard of living.

So why aren't we using nuclear?

People got afraid of it and replaced it with fossil fuels. Near term visible risk vs. long run invisible risk. Also, cost overruns and regulatory issues played a role I think.

We could conceivably swap out carbon for nuclear though. Just not carbon for [more expensive energy source]. People get antsy even when economic growth slows. A drop in the standard of living is political suicide.

I don't think we're very well psychologically equipped to deal with this.

That and the expense of initially building nuclear energy facilities. Even though it's cheaper once it's built, the initial capital cost can be daunting.

A large part of the capital costs is satisfying all the environmental studies and inevitable lawsuits. The core technology is pretty cheap (concrete and pumps).

Nuclear power is literally orders of magnitude cleaner/safer than anything else, and yet the fear mongering continues and the idealistic environmentalists are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere with every NG turbine installed to backup the wind/solar plants. Just the other day I heard a talking head repeatedly referring to "the old dirty coal and nuke plants".